25 November, 2009

Vampires, werewolves and hormonal teenagers. Scared? You should be.

DISCLAIMER: There are some subjects that this blog generally avoids. Firstly because I'm not very much in touch with them (my TV viewing is limited to on-demand services like iPlayer or 4oD and I don't really follow celeb culture in general) and secondly because joining in the commentary on these things, even if negative, somehow taints you, covering you in thick black ink of shame and forcing you to scrub your skin with bleach and Brillo pads to get any kind of relief. Topics like "Jedward" fall into this category at the moment.

But I have to weigh in on New Moon.

Obviously, I was never going to like this film. I don't even have ovaries and I've not read the books (as I may be reminded following this blog post, but I'm commenting on the film not the book, so there). But while the original Twilight film at least had a mysterious tone to it and some fun moments, New Moon was about as enjoyable as waiting in line at the Post Office on a Thursday afternoon. And the Post Office is actually an outdoor hut surrounded by land mines. In the bowels of Hades itself.

Yes, there was some fighting which was OK - the pale one got smashed against a staircase which was pretty Jack Bauer (yes, that is now an adjective) and of course the bit with the film "Facepunch" provided some laughs. But other than that, even the most ardent Twilightiteite would have to admit that about 95% of the movie was just utter misery, even by Miss Happiness' standards (that's the pouty female one I'm talking about). Sat on her bed, the camera circling around her while she contemplates suicide just to see the extra-pale hallucinatory face of her vampire love.

It's just hard to empathise with such a sour, pouty protagonist- you get the picture that no matter what, she'll never be happy. Therefore I propose that her head have a little yellow circular icon hovering over it to denote her emotion. So when Eddy's head appears to tell her not to stick her head in the ice cream maker (OK, I made that part up) a friendly yellow face will indicate that she is HAP-PEE. Or the rest of the time it can be a sad face with a little tear. Maybe it'll make it onto the DVD features... one can only hope.

But maybe I'm wrong - maybe the next film will show that once they're together again, the world will be full of butterflies and lollipops and it'll end with them singing "Take On Me" in a karaoke club with string from party poppers in their hair. Or maybe it's a good thing that this film seems like a collective act of self-harming. All I know for sure is, there's something a little bit scary about it.